


Snowy

by bombcollar



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Whales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-11 23:25:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3336677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bombcollar/pseuds/bombcollar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An albino whale calf is captured in Dunwall harbor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowy

**Author's Note:**

> While there's little canon evidence aside from a few bone charms involving white rats, I've always enjoyed the idea that albino animals (and people) are considered to be associated with the Outsider.
> 
> Old Mother is featured in some of my other works.
> 
> Warning: Contains descriptions of animal abuse.  
> This fic is also posted on my tumblr.

4th of the Month, a young female and her calf, an albino, were apparently separated from their pod and, confused by the underwater sound of boat engines, swam upstream through the Wrenhaven and became disoriented. River traffic was disrupted for several days, as well as security patrols as people gathered at the edges of the river to view the whales, who could not dive deeply enough to escape view. The city watch had their hands full keeping civilian boats away from the distressed animals as it was debated what would be done with them.

  
“It was almost like a carnival,” one riverside resident said. “People were playing music, selling pies and beer to the crowds… The children especially loved it. They’d never seen a live whale up so close before. ‘course you had arrests left and right too, what with a white whale showing up, you know that’s gonna draw out the strange ones.”

Researchers from the Academy of Natural Philosophy were permitted to come within a safe range of the animals while they were resting, and confirmed that the female was roughly 20 years old and 15 meters in length. Her calf was estimated to be three months, and about 3 meters. The calf was described as being “ice-white and glossy, alike to the glacial masses encountered up north, with blue eyes and not a speck of black on it.” It was curious at first, and when its mother refused to let it nurse, would swim up to the researchers’ boats, nudging them with its head and even trying to overturn them. People threw fish offal to it from the docks, which it would gobble up, no doubt starving for lack of motherly attention. This attracted hagfish, who bit the whales and left noticeable red gouges on the calf’s white hide.

After three days, the mother whale managed to escape, but her confused calf was left behind. It was determined then and there that the calf would be captured alive and kept that way for as long as possible so the growth of whales could be studied, as well as albinism. A sturdy net was drawn between a pair of boats and used to herd the calf into a narrower part of the river, where it could be captured. The net was wrapped around it as it squealed for its mother, who was echoing its cries from the mouth of the river as she tried to guide it out. The calf was towed to a temporary holding pen meant to keep fish fresh for the market, so its wounds could be treated. Weak and hungry, it made no attempt to fight off its new keepers.

A sea pen was hastily constructed out of wood pylons and netting with space enough for the calf to swim, as well as a canvas shade to keep the sun off its sensitive skin. The question was raised whether the lethargic calf (now nicknamed “Snowy”) would survive another day. At first Snowy refused to swim at all once lowered into the pen, and only drifted on the surface. Those hours it was awake, it called constantly to its mother, emitting a high-pitched, breathless drone that seemed to drill into the ears of all who heard it. Workers in the oil refineries are known to complain of hearing the whales’ dying songs in their sleep, and few last long in the profession. It seemed even an infant’s cry had the same effect, and none of the academics who came to study it could stand to stay longer than a few hours, even with their ears plugged.

Snowy’s mother returned daily to look for her (as cursory examinations determined that the calf was female) at the mouth of the river, further disrupting shipping schedules as she would block the way and even ram ships that came too close to her. Her calls were recorded and played to the infant in hopes that it would soothe the calf, along with the calls of other mother whales and their offspring, but she only seemed to grow more distressed, and would not eat.

Meanwhile, the Abbey objected to the practice of keeping a white whale, citing that albino animals had been linked to the Outsider and to rituals evoking him, and a white whale was an especially tenuous threshold. It was agreed that an Overseer would be kept onsite to watch for any signs of suspicious behavior from the whale. Thus far, Snowy had only exhibited normal whale behavior. When not floating motionless, she would swim in circles around the pen, sometimes for hours, calling constantly.

Approximately a week after the capture, her mother was fatally rammed by a whaling vessel and her body hauled off to the Rothwild slaughterhouse for processing. When her calls ceased, so did Snowy’s. The despondent calf, still unwilling to feed and alarmingly thin, seemed like she would not last much longer, in spite of the academy’s efforts. As a last-ditch attempt to preserve her life, she was restrained and a feeding tube forced down her throat. Many students rejected this practice, saying it was interfering with the natural order, and if the calf did not wish to live it was unethical to force her to eat. They insisted that they could learn plenty from an autopsy, though the Abbey rejected this, insisting that the whale’s corpse be burned. The bones of an albino whale would be extremely powerful conduits and it was necessary to destroy them. All the while Snowy languished.

It was not long after that the attacks began.

Pods of whales swarming and even sundering whaling vessels was not unknown, but a particularly notorious pod had caused trouble for years. It was led by an albino whale of gargantuan proportions and estimated great age, known colloquially as Old Mother. Sightings of her dated back to more than 200 years, an enormous matriarch with her prow and back decorated in deep scarring. She was believed by some to be a manifestation of the Outsider, or a familiar to him, but less superstitious beliefs held that she was as cunning as she was ancient. A great and vicious whale, but only an animal like any other.

Old Mother’s pod, though uncommonly spotted, had taken down dozens of vessels and damaged many more to the point that they were no longer serviceable, sometimes freeing captive whales held by them. As Snowy was held captive and studied, reports came in that Old Mother’s pod had attacked and downed a whaling vessel, one that had held no whales at the time and had been heading back to Gristol. Great emphasis was put upon the suddenness with which the whales had appeared, ramming themselves with great urgency against the ship until they caved the hull in and sank it. They did not linger to snap up the survivors, only continued on their way, in the same direction the ship had been heading. Old Mother herself was only seen briefly after the attack had passed and the ship was foundering.

At first it was merely written off as a tragic loss of a good vessel. A fluke. But only days later, another ship was attacked and sunk by the pod, a freighter, carrying luxury goods into the city. Similar to the first, it happened in the dead of night, and the pod quickly traveled on. This continued through the month, with the pod decimating everything in their path. Given the sun sensitivity of the matriarch, this particular group was never sighted during the day, but a pod that moved only during the night could not possibly be making such a rapid journey.

A professor at the academy specializing in whale studies, and one of those assigned to Snowy’s caretaking, believed that their matriarch was driving them toward the city, pushing them day and night to make the journey as quickly as possible. For animals that required hundreds of pounds of food per week, this rapid traveling time would allow for little time spent hunting, and it would take a heavy toll on the pod’s health if they continued this way. So rapid was their pace that it would not be possible to set up a sea net in time and prevent them from entering the harbor. Reports from survivors estimated the pod to contain between 50 and 100 whales, with the number growing between each sighting, suggesting that more joined up every day, called to action by Old Mother.

The attack reports were kept quiet, but it was obvious that there would be no keeping the truth from the citizens of Dunwall once the whales reached the harbor. Snowy was taken from her sea pen and brought inland to be housed in an upriver marina, where the water was too shallow for any adult whale to pass through. Even though the pod was still a day’s travel from the city, Snowy showed marked agitation, biting her captors and thrashing at her bonds, constantly calling.

Now more than ever the Abby called for the destruction of the calf, arguing that Old Mother’s pod would not come if they had nothing to rescue, but even amid their ranks there was dissent, with others claiming the whales would wreak havoc on the harbor in revenge. Inevitably there would be panic if the whales showed up, and it was hesitantly that voices were raised in favor of letting the calf free. After all, what could they do? Whaling freighters scrambled to blockade the harbor, and people took noticed, asked questions, which were silenced for now but could not be for much longer.

A day later, as the sun was setting, the pod finally rolled into the Wrenhaven harbor. The water roiled with black, oily skin and rolling yellow eyes, teeth gnashing as the massive pod drove itself deeper into the blockade. The journey had taken a harsh toll on many of the whales, and though they appeared thin, they rammed themselves into the ships with no less fury. Even the receding of the tide did little to quell them. Those who had been pushed into shallower waters were stranded and suffocated beneath their weight and the heat of the sun bearing down on them. Still others were taken out by well-placed harpoons, but that only lasted so long. It was difficult and dangerous to retrieve the spears, and the whales were too numerous to be dissuaded by manmade weapons. Their sheer numbers made it impossible to get in or out of the harbor, even on small vessels.

And the singing. Gods, the singing. It never ceased, an endless guttural chorus from dawn until dusk and throughout the night. It shook the bones of whoever came within sight of them and could be heard even into the heart of the city.

At first it was reported to the public as a mass stranding. A freak accident, caused by unusual tides, magnetic interference, something of that ilk. The blockade put in place to ensure the whales did not cause damage to the city. While this satisfied some, it did not explain why the whales struggled to push themselves further in instead of back out to sea, and it did nothing to stop their insistent song. People could not sleep, plagued by nightmares. Some fled the city into the countryside to escape it. The corpses of the stranded whales bloated and burst in the heat with no ships able to tow them to the slaughterhouses, attracting birds and vermin and filling the harbor with the reek of rotting blubber.

All the while, the white whale, Old Mother, patrolled in the background, her ghostly flukes breaking the dark water whenever she surfaced. Occasionally she would roll onto her side, surveying the chaos she had sown with a pale, baleful eye, as if she knew it would only be a matter of time before she got what she wanted.

The whole city begged the academy to release Snowy, whether they believed this to be a vengeful act by the Outsider or simply an act of nature reclaiming its own. The scholars argued fiercely with the Abbey for the value of the calf, and it took an order from the Lord Regent himself to get them to finally relent. Fearing retribution for destroying what could be a marked animal, the Abbey finally agreed that the calf should be released, as long as an effort would be made to kill it on sight once it was seen back in the wild and its corpse delivered directly to them for disposal.

Snowy was loaded onto a fishing boat and brought down the river to where the battered blockade still stood. The thrashing pod finally quieted as the boat approached, their relentless cries dying down until only the gulls circling the corpses could be heard. When the calf was released she slipped beneath the water, apparently too weak to swim at first, but managed to surface and paddle through the narrow gap in the whaling trawlers. Those observing quickly lost track of her as the pod moved ponderously back out to sea, but it was reported that she was sighted swimming alongside Old Mother in the center of the group as they exited the harbor. Snowy has not been sighted since and her status is unknown.


End file.
